UN Special Rapporteur on the right to education, Kishore Singh, on Monday called [press release] on Chilean authorities to implement a sustainable model to education. He explained [statement] that “Chile is going through an historic period of transformation to recognize education as a right and not as a commodity” through its implementation of its Inclusive Education Act of June 2015 that progressively and completely eradicated “for-profit” education before 2018. Singh applauded Chile for adopting an “unprecedented” stance toward reforms and that combat high levels of school segregation and stratification. The Special Rapporteur also urged the government of Chile to enact legislation on financing education because of its essential nature to ensure that education is not reduced to a commodity or tainted by corruption and fraud. He said that the “State remains the guardian of the right to education in all circumstances” and focused on the change in Chile from education being driven by neoliberal economic policies and education “restored” as a public service through legislation.

Chile has also begun the process of drafting a new constitution in order to reflect the ideals of democracy and not its dictatorship when the current draft was written. The process began [JURIST report] in October and the new constitution will be presented to Congress in the second half of 2017. In March 2015 the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights warned [JURIST report] that poverty in Chile remained under the radar for many policy-makers in the country. He noted that although Chile serves as a model for much of Latin America in regards to human rights and social policy innovations- it continued to tolerate high levels of inequality and poverty.

THIS DAY @ LAW

International Day for the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination

March 21 is the International
Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination [UNESCO
factsheet].On March 21, 1804, the
Code Civil des Francais, the reformed French
civil law often referred to in French as the Code Napoleon, and in
English as the Napoleonic Code, went into effect in France, Belgium,
Luxembourg, and French colonies.

March from Selma begins

On March 21, 1965, Martin Luther King, Jr. began
his third march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama to protest racial
discrimination in the Jim Crow South. By March 25, over 25,000
people lead by Dr. King reached Montgomery, Alabama. Specifically,
the march called attention to suppression of African-American voting
rights and a police assault on a civil rights demonstration three
weeks prior.Five months
later, in August 1965, Congress passed the Voting
Rights Act. Read a history
of the march from Selma to Montgomery and a history
of the Voting Rights Act.